A South Korean soldier passes by a TV screen showing file footage of CIA Director Mike Pompeo, left, and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un during a news program at the Seoul Railway Station, (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)

(Newser)
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CIA Director Mike Pompeo secretly travelled to Pyongyang over Easter weekend to meet Kim Jong Un for the highest-level direct talks between the US and North Korea since Madeleine Albright's visit as secretary of state in 2000, sources tell the Washington Post and the AP. Pompeo made the highly unusual trip to lay the groundwork for direct talks between Kim and President Trump over North Korea's nuclear program, the sources say. Trump accepted North Korea's invitation to talks last month, but no location has been announced yet for what would be the first-ever meeting between a sitting president and a North Korean leader. The meeting is expected to happen by early June.

Pompeo, who made the trip to Pyongyang soon after he was nominated to replace Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week that he is "optimistic" that the US can set the appropriate conditions for a meeting that "will set us down the course of achieving a diplomatic outcome" that "America and the world so desperately need." Trump was apparently alluding to the meeting Tuesday when he told reporters at Mar-a-Lago that the US and North Korea have already had "direct talks" at "very high levels." He said five different locations are being considered for the meeting, none of which are in the US. (A formal end to the Korean War may be in sight.)

I would highly suggest the meeting take place in a North Korean Starbucks outfit since this is going to be highly racially charged. But this is going to make Trump look good for a change. The world is going to be watching.

Aka Mogg

Apr 18, 2018 7:08 PM CDT

I've said before this is the difference I see between Democrats and GOP for America PBS NewsHour pointed to Pompeo before Congress and that he had not revealed a secret meeting with North Korea's Kim during the exchange with Congress. Afterward, Republican Congressman Bob Corker said despite only learning after the meeting to vet Pompeo for Secretary of State that the meeting with Kim, held in secret for the purposes of the Administration had happened, that the progress bode well for an important coming to terms over the threat of nuclear war. On the other hand, Democrat Bob Menendez focused solely on the vetting of Pompeo which Menendez said rested on Pompeo's candor and volunteer of information to Congress first and foremost and therefore Menendez would vote to prevent Pompeo, who has thus far been instrumental in moving towards the resolution of what is credibly a threat of war, from the office of Secretary of State. Corker approves on hopes of peace while Menendez objects to Pompeo because Pompeo didn't spill a secret to the Democrats.